Most bicycle seat assemblies have two rails extending underneath the seat from back to front, to which the post attaches and tightens by means of variously shaped housings and tightening bolts. The post in turn is placed in the bicycle frame, and adjusted vertically by sliding the post up or down within the frame. It is adjusted forwardly and rearwardly by loosening the attachment of the post to the rails and moving the rails through the post attachment forwardly or rearwardly as desired.
Prior art seat/post attachments, especially those with tilting capability, often employ numerous small parts which constitute a weakness in construction. Besides making the apparatus more complex and thus expensive, small parts such as bolts can and often do fail due to improper assembly, e.g. overtightening, poor maintenance, or simply fatigue induced through work hardening. The use of bicycles in the mountains and on other types of rugged terrain puts increased stress on these bolts and other components of the seat/post connection apparatus.
Another problem with seat/post attachment apparatus is complexity of adjustment. Retailers attempting to adjust a bicycle's seat position for a customer must often fiddle with numerous pieces at one time and use a correctly sized Allen wrench or similar tool. Since the seat/post attachments are difficult to adjust, many customers take delivery of bicycles that are not correctly adjusted for their physiques, resulting in inefficient and uncomfortable riding, and this increases the likelihood of fatigue and failure of small parts.
An additional concern with seat post apparatus arises as a result of some newly enacted safety standards in some countries for the devices. In particular, these standards require that the seat post connection withstand a certain force applied to either end of the seat without the connection rotating.
Thus, there is a need for a seat/post connection which minimizes the number of parts, and is easily adjustable.